Title: Flight to the Stars
Author: julian_juliana
Rating: M
Summary: Captain Hook never handed over Baelfire to Pan, setting off a domino effect and directly changing Emma's fate of breaking the twenty-eight year curse of Storybrooke. Two days before her seventeenth birthday and by "accident", she's taken to Neverland and must align herself with Hook and Baelfire to make it off the island alive.
Pairings: Ultimately Captain Swan; Captain Duckling; Swan Fire; Swan Thief.
Warning: Possible OOC, major character death, minor character death, violence, mention of a children's deaths, mild gore, innuendo, underage implicit sexual content, implicit sexual content between an adult and a minor, implicit sexual content in general, and language. If any of these offend you, turn away now.
Boston, 2000
Emma zipped up her backpack, put on a Red Sox baseball cap, and tossed the hood of her jacket over it. She was ready to go. Leave this place. Leave the system once and for all. She had her fake ID, Harry Potter books, food to last a few days, Mathew's Swiss Army knife because she wasn't an idiot, a wad of stolen cash she snatched from Mrs. Abernathy's purse, and her baby blanket.
Slipping her backpack on, she gave one last glance to Brianna sleeping on the top bunk and the room she'd been sleeping in for the last three weeks. Quietly, she opened the bedroom door and tiptoed into the hallway. She about got to the top of the staircase when she heard whispering coming from the boys' room. The door was open and it sounded like Ian was talking to someone. It wasn't that strange. There were two other boys in the room with him, but the light was off and the bedroom door was partially open. Something strange settled into the air, and Emma wanted to shake it off. She could literally see her freedom, her ticket out of this awful place. The front door was only feet away from the last stair.
No one was talking back to Ian. The kid may be eight, but he wasn't weird enough to strike up a conversation with himself.
Emma went down one step and then cursed, returning to the second level and walking into the boys' room, her breath catching when seeing a dark, shadowy figure looming over Mathew while he slept on his top bunk. Ian was standing and looking up, whispering, "Don't wake him. He won't like that. Please don't."
"Hey!" she shouted and the shadowy figure lurched and pinned Emma with inhuman glowing eyes. Mathew and Darnell stirred while the figure floated away from Mathew and grabbed Ian, pulling him towards the open window.
"Emma!" Ian called out, stretching his free hand towards her. He was being lifted off the floor.
"No!" She ran towards him and grabbed his ankle right when it was leaving the window ledge. She tried yanking him back into the room but felt herself being lifted and pulled out the window. She and Ian shot towards the sky at a heart-stopping speed. They flew over parks, homes, and the city buildings of Boston before elevating further up into the starry night. The temperature dropped dramatically, and Emma stared up at hers and Ian's captor. Good God, she could see through it.
"I'm scared!" Ian sobbed.
Emma didn't respond. She could no longer see Boston, and something in the air changed. They were now flying below the clouds again and beneath them was a large body of water, and far off in the distance was an island.
The shadow descended at a sharp decline, darting towards the water. Emma's boots skimmed the water, and she realized what the shadow was trying to do. It was trying to get rid of her. Determinedly, her grip tightened on Ian's ankle. At the same time, a grip settled on hers. Alarmed, she let go of Ian and fell into the frigid water, the temperature knocking the wind out of her. She hurriedly swam to surface and inhaled a deep breath, jerking her head around to see what had pulled her in, screaming when feeling something brush against her leg. God, please don't let be a shark!
She was only mildly relieved to know that sharks couldn't grip onto a person's ankle.
Emma stayed there for a few minutes, waiting to feel something encircle her again before setting eyes on the island. It was far but she could make it. She had to rescue Ian. He was just a kid.
As she swam towards the island, Emma rehashed the last twenty minutes and tried to come up with a logical explanation of what she'd seen and experienced. The fact was, though, she was swimming in a cold, salty ocean to reach Ian who had been kidnapped by a body-less thing. She was not dreaming and was very much wet.
Her backpack was sopped and heavy and slowing her strokes, but she couldn't part with it. It had her blanket in it and small knickknacks making up her insignificant life. Plus food. Not all of it but some probably survived the icy dip into the ocean. Yay, for cellophane packaged goods, she thought bitterly.
Several times before she reached shore, Emma felt something brush up against her, but she could never saw it and she was partially grateful for that. By the time she reached the sand, the sun was rising and she was exhausted. Her arms, back, and shoulders ached. She quickly shrugged off her pack and squished the water out of it and unzipped it, throwing aside the cardboard box of her Pop Tarts and gum. Emma uncapped one of her three bottles of water and guzzled half of it, the liquid feeling nice on her tongue but gross in her stomach. She had swallowed too much ocean.
Emma wanted to dry before going in search for Ian but with the sun rising and the humidity thickly settling into the air, she knew that wasn't going to happen. She stripped off her jacket and tied it around her waist, keeping her ball cap on. She stared into the lush, thick green forest in front of her and whispered a, "Shit." Finding Ian was going to be a maze. She got out her stolen pocket knife and breached the forest line, walking ten or so feet and scratching at the trunk of a tree.
"Ian!" she called out.
A bird flew away from the tree she was carving on.
Every twenty feet, she repeated the action of scratching at the tree trunks and called for Ian. By the time the sun was high up in the sky, her throat ached and she was down to her last bottle of water. She was sweating buckets and hadn't needed to pee which didn't bode well with her. She was becoming dehydrated and fast, not to mention the gnats and other flying bugs feasting on her. At least the tall, leafy trees provided some shade from the sun or she'd be as red as a lobster.
Emma walked a mile before she remembered what she'd seen about coconuts on TV. There was water in them. Looking up at the palm tree she scratched on, she saw the brownish green cylinders snuggled at the base of the branches. Shirking her pack, she wrapped her legs and arms around the trunk of the tree and wiggled upwards. She didn't know how to climb trees without lower branches, so the journey was going to be interesting.
Once she reached the coconuts, her heart pounded from exertion. With her last bit of energy, she maneuvered onto a branch and dislodged the coconuts by kicking at them. Three hit the ground and rolled, so she shimmied down the trunk and grabbed them before they got too far.
Emma remembered hearing from somewhere that coconuts have thick skins, so with Mathew's pocket knife and a rock, she worked on puncturing several holes into the layers and the meat. After a few minutes, a thin stream of light yellow liquid poured into her awaiting water bottle. She repeated this with the other two coconuts and hoped they would be enough until she found fresh water.
When the forest began to darken and Emma's stomach began to growl, she called out to Ian several more times before finding a clearing and resting against a tree. She pulled a Pop Tart out of her bag and wished it to be a cheeseburger.
Hours ticked by and Emma jerked awake when hearing the sounds of crying children.
"Ian!" she yelled and climbed to her feet. She could barely see a thing, the only light coming from the full moon and stars in the sky. She slung her backpack around her shoulders and headed towards the noise. She walked for several minutes and stopped when she came to a spring. She sighed in relief and dipped her hands into the cool water, washing her hands, face, and neck.
Something sharp and fast whizzed past her cheek, slightly grazing the skin. She yelped and fell to her side, scrambling to get on her feet and run. In the dark, she saw several hooded figures emerge from the bushes. One of them, the tallest, said, "Kill her."
"Wh—" The words died on Emma's lips, and she turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction, circling around the spring and back into the forest. They were chasing after her. She could hear the stomping of their feet behind her. She picked up the pace and weaved in and out of clearings, only to take a sharp left and run along a rocky hillside. She believed to be home free when a cloaked figure came at her from the side and flattened her to the ground. He sat on top of her chest, knees pressing painfully into her arms.
"Stupid little girl calling out for the boy all day long. We knew where you were the moment you entered the forest."
Emma frowned. He sounded like a kid. Maybe ten or eleven.
"What the hell are you doing, kid?" she hissed
"Pan has no use for you."
"What? What are you—"
Her question was cut short when she saw him lift his hand, and she saw a small bladed dagger catching the moon's reflection. Swiftly, she brought both her knees up and slammed them hard into the child's back. He howled in pain and rolled off her, and she grabbed his weapon and disappeared from sight. She got a few hundred yards when another cloaked figure stepped out in front of her swinging a club at her face. High on adrenaline, she gripped the club when it came at her again and yanked it from the figure's hold, tossing it aside. He then unsheathed a—was that a sword?— and took a swipe at her. She quickly picked up the discarded club and used that to fend him off, managing to hit him in the gut and then between the legs. He fell to his knees, and she relieved him of his sword and left behind the club. The less weapons they had, the harder it would be for them to kill her. Why they felt they had to was beyond her. She only wanted Ian and to get the hell off this island. Away from this Lord of the Flies nightmare come to life. God, she hoped Ian was okay. He was so little; she wanted to believe he wasn't being hurt by these hopped-up hooligans.
Morning came without any more attacks, but her body hurt and she was exhausted. She needed food. Real food. Not candy bars and Pop Tarts. Eventually, she found another spring and hoped there may be fish in it. Didn't matter, she mused. She didn't know how to fish, anyway, especially without a pole.
Emma refilled her water bottles and washed her arms. She was tempted to strip and have a lay in the water to scrub off the grime but couldn't risk being caught in such a vulnerable state. Not that she could be much more vulnerable than she already was. She had no idea where she was or where she needed to go. If she found Ian, she had no idea how to get back to Boston. They were flown here by a thing.
She bit down on her lips to keep from crying. She was sixteen—no seventeen—she was seventeen years old today and had gone a few years without shedding a tear. Now was not the time to start again. She needed to be strong and wallowing and weeping in despair was not going to help her.
"Hello, Emma."
Emma bristled and leapt to her feet, whirling around to see a boy about sixteen dressed in dark green material. Mathew's knife was held tight in her fist, and she did her best to calm her racing heart. "I've already outwitted two of you," she told him.
He smirked and began to pace. "That you have, and I'm impressed. It's why I called my boys back. I clearly underestimated you."
"Your boys?"
He nodded and stopped pacing. "If you haven't figured it out, Emma, you were never meant to come." He then shrugged, his smirk deepening. "Neither was Ian. The boy was just a way of getting who I truly wanted. Mathew. Alas, the lad wouldn't wake, and I need a new recruit."
Emma frowned and took a step back. "Who are you?"
"You haven't figured it out?" He chuckled, smiling impishly. "I'm Peter Pan."
She shook her head, scoffing. "I'm serious."
The boy's eyes darkened, and his nostrils flared. "You don't belong here, Emma. For many reasons. It's why Shadow tried to feed you to the mermaids. I see those picky eaters barely left a mark on you. You see, Neverland is home to the believers of magic. To children who dream of a freer life away from adults who don't care about them. Who don't love them and couldn't possibly be bothered to try."
Emma looked away, a sour feeling settling in her chest.
"Hit close to home, that one. Doesn't matter. You may be a lost girl, an orphan, but you don't believe in anything, do you? You so are weighed down with resentment and bitterness and hate, Shadow didn't bother carrying you the rest of the way. There is no hope in you. It's just as well. I don't like girls. Their presence tends to disrupt Neverland's order. My order."
A number of hooded boys emerged from the surrounding shrubbery, pointing spears and arrows at her. She whipped her head around, trying to find an opening in the trees to run for and find a place to hide.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the boy who called himself Peter Pan warned. "You move just a little, the fish in this spring will be picking the flesh off your bones for the next week. I'm going to take you back to our camp. I will allow you to see precious, little Ian but come nightfall, you will be given two choices."
"Which are?" Emma asked.
"Just know neither require leaving this island or seeing Ian again after tonight. Felix!" The tallest of the boys came to Pan's side. "Tie her hands and relieve of her of her things. We'll need to move now if we want to get back to camp by the afternoon."
The boy named Felix emptied the contents of Emma's backpack, and one by one, threw each item into the fire in the middle of the camp. It stung when he ripped apart her water-logged Harry Potter books before tossing them into the flames, but that was nothing compared what she felt when he burned her baby blanket. With five pointed spearheads pointed at her throat, there was nothing she could do to stop him.
"I want to go home, Emma," Ian said from beside her. Like her, he was sitting on the same log but was not receiving the same hospitable treatment.
"I'm sorry," was all she could muster. What the hell was she supposed to say? Everything was going to be all right? It wasn't and her nerves were too shot for her to lie. The night had just fully settled over the island, and she knew she wasn't going to live to see dawn.
This was not how she pictured her death. Not on an island. Not by the hands of a fictional character. Not when she just turned seventeen.
A roasted fish on a stick appeared in front of her. "Hungry?" Pan asked.
"Providing me a last meal?" Emma inquired.
"It could be your last. I suppose it's time to discuss your options."
"You still haven't given the choices."
Pan smirked at her, arching a brow. "Eager, are we? Well, if the lady insists. You have two choices, Swan. I slit your throat now and toss your body into the fire. Or my boys hunt you until you die. What will it be? Die now or perish in a few hours. I won't judge you for whichever path you pick. You pick the second, we will play fair. You won't leave this camp unarmed. Pick the first? Well, it'll be quick and only mildly painful. I promise not to burn your body until you are well and truly lifeless."
Emma exhaled sharply, tears burning her eyes. "I want you to take Ian back."
"This isn't a bargain. You can't offer your life for his when it's already over," Pan said.
"He's eight. What could you possibly need him for? If you are Peter Pan and this is Neverland, he won't get older. He'll stay like this forever. I look at these other boys. None of them are as young as he is. Take him back."
"You should be more concerned about yourself, Emma. I'm giving you ten seconds to decide. You don't? I'll have your shadow ripped from your body slowly, and that will be painful and you will die."
Pan gifted back her stolen knife, a quiver full of arrows, and a bow. Emma barely knew how to use the knife. The only experience she had with archery was seeing it on television. It looked easy, but she wasn't an idiot. Taking aim, dislodging the arrow, and hitting a target was not going happen. Not without practice, and she had no time for that. These lost boys were aching to off her, itching for a hunt and to run wild, painting the island red with her blood.
"Do I get a head start?" she asked Pan.
He shook his head and yelled, "Go!"
Baelfire quietly climbed up the roped ladder onto the Jolly Roger from the rowboat. When he made it to the main deck, his captain's voice greeted him. "If you think I wouldn't notice you were gone the whole bleeding day, then you're growing foolish, lad."
"There's a barrel of freshwater and a net of fish in the boat," Baelfire said, discarding his satchel.
"The agreed time to fetch supplies was tomorrow. You disobeyed my orders."
"Pan and the Lost Boys were distracted today. I saw a window and took it. It's time you start trusting me and letting me go out on my own. I can take care of myself when I'm out there."
"That's what Henderson and O'Malley thought," the captain growled. "You are to remain on this ship until I say otherwise. Understood?"
"You can't keep me holed up on this ship all the time. I'm a part of the crew."
Hook scowled at him. "You're bound to the kitchen until further notice."
Baelfire stomped off, disappearing below deck. Captain Hook glowered after him, the tattoo on his forearm itching. He stared at the island. Pan's camp remained ignited, and he could hear the heathenry howls of the boys even from miles away. Hook thought back to what Baelfire said and how the Pan and the Lost Boys were distracted, a rare happening. He and what was left of his crew had been in Neverland for over three hundred years-Baelfire over hundred. He reckoned he knew Pan and his boys well enough to know they had a rogue recruit on their hands. A recruit who didn't fancy playing Pan's games and the concept of never leaving the bloody island.
It was a blithering shame when a recruit didn't adhere to Pan's rules. The ones who defied him usually didn't live more than a week. Hook sympathized with them. They were lads, after all, but dying was a lot better than being Pan's lap-slag.
Hook pulled out from his pocket a bottle of rum and saluted to the island before downing a sip. "Best of luck to you, mate. You're going to need it."